The 6th International Conference on Communication and Applied Technologies (ICOMTA’26), to be held in João Pessoa (Brazil), will feature a special issue in the journal Palabra Clave (Scopus, Q2), one of the most prestigious publications in the Ibero-American academic sphere.

This special issue, titled “Political Communication in Times of Polarization, Populism, and Post-Truth,” seeks to examine the key role of interactive media and the potential of social networks to shape and (de)form public opinion, as well as to identify challenges, approaches, and methodologies for studying contemporary public opinion.

The issue will be edited by three renowned international scholars: Daniel Barredo Ibáñez (University of Seville, Spain), Holli A. Semetko (Emory University, United States), and Agnieszka Hess (Jagiellonian University, Poland).

The monograph will prioritize comparative studies with a critical perspective, especially those with an explanatory scope. Topics of interest include, among others:

• Media framing and agenda-setting in polarized contexts.
• Emotional and affective polarization in digital environments.
• The role of partisan media and echo chambers in shaping public opinion.
• Disinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories in political ecosystems.
• Cognitive biases and the circulation of false or manipulative content.
• Platform affordances and the algorithmic amplification of political messages.
• The impact of recommendation systems on ideological exposure and polarization.
• Transnational analyses of populist and polarized media systems.
• Methodological innovations for studying political communication and public opinion in hybrid media systems.

How to Participate

Researchers interested in submitting their work to this special issue must follow these steps:

1. Submit an abstract

(No full paper is required at this stage) via the following link:
👉 https://icomta.net/envio-de-abstracts/

2. Selection Process

After a peer review and an assessment of the relevance and potential quality of the abstracts, the editorial committee will select the most suitable proposals.
Authors of accepted abstracts will be contacted directly by the editors and guided through the submission of the full article via the journal’s platform, where it will undergo a second round of peer review in its extended version.

For more information about the themes of the special issue:
https://palabraclave.unisabana.edu.co/index.php/palabraclave/announcement/view/305

For more information about ICOMTA’26 in Brazil:
https://icomta.me